US Cheating case: Court grants 4 days custody of 3 accused to CBI; remands 40 to judicial custody

New Delhi [India], July 27 (ANI): The Rouse Avenue court on Saturday remanded three accused to four days of CBI custody and the other 40 have been remanded to judicial custody in the alleged cheating of USD 15 million.

These accused persons have been arrested in relation to the alleged cheating of USD 15 million.

Judicial Magistrate First Class Nishant Garg granted the custody remand of three accused to the CBI for 4 days. The other 40 accused have been remanded to judicial custody till August 9 by the court.

The judge said, ” I am satisfied with the grounds of arrest. Considering the transnational nature and gravity of offences, the fact that the investigation is at an early stage, to prevent accused persons from tampering with the evidence, influencing the witness, repeating the offenses, and expeditious and fair Investigation they are required to be sent to judicial custody.

As far as accused Dhruv Khattar, Dhairya Khattar and Tushar Arora concerned, to unearth the Conspiracy and to gather evidence, their custodial interrogation is necessary, the judge said.

Earlier, the CBI conducted searches at 7 locations across Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida.

In a statement, the probe agency said, “During these searches, live cybercriminal operations were intercepted, and substantial incriminating evidence has been gathered. Investigation teams have so far recovered 130 computer hard discs, 65 mobile phones, 5 laptops, incriminating documents, financial transaction details, call recordings, victim details, and transcripts used for targeting victims. Victims were contacted by impersonation and induced to click on pop-ups for download of malicious software onto their systems and subsequently induced to make payments for restoration of their system. It is revealed that proceeds of crime were channelled from multiple countries to Hong Kong.”

The bail applications of 33 accused have been dismissed by the court. The accused persons sought bail, challenging their arrest.

The CBI has sought the 7-day custody of 3 accused, namely Dhairya, Dhruv Khattar and Tushar Arora.

The CBI produced 43 accused, including 4 women, in the Rouse Avenue Court after one day of judicial custody. They were arrested on July 25.

They have been arrested by the CBI under Operation Chakra. The CBI has registered an FIR on the information provided by the agency.

The CBI submitted that the custody of the accused is required to unearth the conspiracy and the mastermind.

The CBI has arrested the accused persons for allegedly defrauding US citizens worth 15 million US dollars during the period from November 2022 to April 2024.

They were allegedly defrauding the victims by running a call centre in Gurugram. One of the victims was defrauded of 6.5 million US dollars.

It was alleged in the CBI FIR that a racket was running whereby residents of USA were cheated by our residents. Search warrants were acquired and all the guys were arrested at one place in Gurugram.

Banned software was found from call centre and in this case, the US is also involved, FBI is involved, and the counsel for CBI submitted.

43 people are there and they are running a racket, the CBI said.

The CBI sought police custody, stating that from one of the cars, three mobile phones were found of Dhairya Khattar, diary showing transactions of US dollars.

The CBI counsel alleged that 15 million US dollar transactions involved in the case. We have found a voice recording of two brothers with US persons, Dhairya and Dhruv Khattar, regarding the modus operandi, the CBI prosecutor said.

The CBI sought custody of Tushar Arora, a Cloud support engineer, to interrogate and unearth the conspiracy.

On the other hand, the counsel for accused persons opposed the application seeking custody. It was argued that the CBI raided the premises on July 24 at night.

The accused were produced before the duty magistrate on July 26 at 11.45 pm. On July 24, the accused persons were in their custody, defence counsel argued.

They were supposed to produce in 24 hours. In the arrest memo, they (the CBI) said that they were arrested at 6.30 pm on July 25.

They (the accused) were restricted and not allowed to go anywhere, so the arrest was effected on July 24, the counsels for the accused argued.

Till last night, the accused persons were not even having any remand application copy or the FIR copy.

The accused persons were not even informed of the grounds for arrest.

Some of the accused were represented by advocates Arun Khatri, Bharat Arora, Vikhyat Oberoi, Sanjay Sharma, and Karan Sachdeva.

On the other hand, the counsel for the CBI said that the grounds of arrest were communicated to the accused persons, and a search was conducted after obtaining a search warrant, which ran for hours only after the accused were arrested. There is no grudge against the accused.